


Three Possibilities and One Miscalculation

by theshinycrackerjack



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, M/M, Post Reichenbach, Unrequited Love, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-02
Updated: 2012-06-02
Packaged: 2017-11-06 14:35:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/419991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theshinycrackerjack/pseuds/theshinycrackerjack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It has been six years and 43 days since he last saw John. Sherlock thinks that there are three possibilities—three different ways their reunion might play out. </p><p>Post Reichenbach and AU (I know that Sherlock only leaves John for 3 years in canon, but I changed it for the fic).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Possibilities and One Miscalculation

Sherlock thinks that there are three possibilities, all of them statistically possible. The first is the one he hopes for, that he will meet John at 221B Baker Street after sending the man an anonymous tip. They will clasp shoulders like old friends, and John’s joy at his return will overshadow his anger at this ghost of a man. Things will go back to normal. They’ll go back to basics, just the chase and the smell of re-heated Chinese takeaway.

Likelihood: 5.6%

The second is more likely—John will not be anywhere near Baker Street, having distanced himself from memory at the behest of his sister and his therapist. He will be married (maybe with a kid on the way) elsewhere—in Essex or maybe Derbyshire. It will take a few weeks to gather up the nerve and just a few days to make the trip. He’ll arrange a chance meeting at a local Tesco or the bank or John’s surgery. John won’t react well; he’ll be shell-shocked. And all of the emotions that he’s bottled up after the years will come pouring out—verbally and physically. The police will come to break it up and the two of them will awkwardly make chitchat at Scotland Yard. John’s wife will come to collect the two of them and there will be explanations. The three of them will attempt to catch up with lukewarm pleasantries and cold tea. It will be abundantly clear that he is not welcome.

John will ask him to leave. And he will. 

Likelihood: 40%

The third is the one that he’s banking on. John will still be in London, unattached and restless. He won’t accept Sherlock at first; he’ll fancy him a ghost. They’ll have a strange encounter involving badly prepared tea (made by Sherlock, since John will be too flummoxed to handle a kettle) at John’s new flat. 

They’ll talk. Well, Sherlock will talk and John will nod, processing ever so slowly. His thoughts will run like molasses, every sentence penetrating through the fog in his brain at impossibly slow intervals. Sherlock will repeat his story, enumerating his reasons, his methods, his accomplices as many times as John needs to hear it. 

They will drink tea until the light fades outside into black-eye purple and burnt orange. Sherlock will nervously nibble at the biscuits on the tray. John still won’t say anything, but he’ll slouch comfortably into the moth-eaten sofa. He’ll look small and very confused. Sherlock will move from his sitting chair to sit beside him; at first John will jolt at the change.

“John,” he’ll placate.

“John,” he’ll say again. He’ll breathe it out like a prayer, intended to elicit a response. 

John will simply smile at him with his eyes, crinkles at the edges. But he won’t say anything. He’ll scoot to his left and lean against his roommate’s bony shoulders. It’ll be a simple reassurance. John will fall asleep like that, and even though he’ll wake up with a crick in his neck, he’ll be in good spirits. Sherlock won’t sleep that night. Instead, he will listen to the hum of the heater and the rhythm of breathing (both his and John’s). When John sleeps, he’ll snore just a little, wheezing little puffs of air against Sherlock’s neck. The detective will bury his face in John’s hair, inhaling deeply. He’s missed this, he’ll think. John will smell like home.

The next day John will chin him after lunch. Sherlock will bruise like a peach and will hold a bag of frozen peas to his face the entire day. But he won’t complain about it. John’s anger will be justified. 

After another two weeks Sherlock will decide to start taking cases again. Their first case after their reunion will be disjointed; they won’t be entirely in-sync yet. The crime scene will be a mess (courtesy of Anderson), and Sherlock will let his pointed verbal barbs fly. John will make the mistake of attempting to placate him and will receive a scathing retort for his efforts. Later on in the evening, Sherlock will clear the table swiftly and silently. 

“I bought milk,” he’ll offer as an apology. John will look over at him from the corner of his eye and quirk a brow. Sherlock will gauge his reaction carefully, eyes bright. He’ll know that he’s won when John lets out a choked snort of mirth.

Two years and five months will pass without incident. But during an altercation with a criminal, John will trip and break his ankle on an overturned trashcan. Sherlock (unthinkingly) will run after the criminal; he’ll leave John alone in the alleyway. He’ll deliver the criminal to Lestrade, and then he’ll find John. 

The ride to the hospital will be uncommonly uncomfortable. John will be bitter (he thinks that he’s getting old). He won’t want to weigh Sherlock down. Sherlock will be worried, because a large part of him hadn’t wanted to abandon John at all back there. A large part of him had been willing to let the criminal get away. And that just doesn’t happen. Sherlock has always be married to his work, an unwavering dedication. He has never been good with moderation. 

Sherlock is not a coward, but he also knows that he’s not Superman. He has an obligation to keep himself alive. He didn’t come back from the dead once just to throw it away on the thrill of the chase. When John is released from the hospital, Sherlock will broach the topic of retirement. John will be understandably livid; he won’t want to be person who takes away his best friend’s livelihood. 

“If you don’t mind jam and burnt toast and a house in the country, then I’d like you to come with me.”  
“What?”  
“I don’t need the chase anymore, John. I need puzzles and vocal admiration and a plethora of cable knit jumpers. And I think I have the Internet and you for those things.” 

“You’ll get bored,” John will argue tentatively.  
“I’ll take up a hobby then.”  
“A hobby,” he’ll deadpan.  
“I’m thinking bees. Bee-keeping. Possibly in Sussex,” Sherlock will respond lightly.  
They’ll start giggling like school children, and Sherlock can’t be certain, but he thinks that’s a yes. 

Likelihood: 54.4%

Reality ends up differently, because conjecture is just conjecture, after all. It mocks him and evades him and spits out a fourth possibility, one he had not anticipated at all.

He tracks down John’s location and arranges a chance meeting. Mycroft tries to interfere by sending him snippets of news clippings or magazines articles or video footage. Sherlock treats them all with the same indifference. This does not concern Mycroft. 

John is still in London, and Sherlock knows that the man loves walking around this park on the weekends to clear his head, to chew the fat with the bored young housewives and throw tiny scraps of bread at the ducks. Sherlock knows this, and so at 1:46 PM on the second Saturday of March, he waits. He fidgets with his small bag of crumbs (for the birds). The park bench is digging into the small of his back, but he knows that John always takes this route. He waits. 

After half an hour or so John makes his appearance. Sherlock bites down on his tongue. The pressure of teeth on tongue grounds him. John is older now (but has the same military hair-cut, the same solid posture). He stiffens a little at the cold and rearranges his coat (frayed around the edges, but well-loved). He squints and raises a hand to shield his eyes (a ring glints on his left hand). His frown lines are more pronounced. But he doesn’t look tired. He just looks older. He isn’t wearing a jumper with some silly colored pattern reserved for homely uncles. He is wearing a crisp dress shirt, form fitting but not obscenely so. The shirt says “professional” and “authority.” Looks like John has moved up in the world. Head of his medical division with a raise to accompany it. Traces of a wiped away lipstick mark on his temple. Wife, not girlfriend. Overly affectionate. 

His shoes are new and pinch his feet; they’re too expensive for the rest of his attire. Must be a present from the wife. They don’t fit well (John winces a little). Sherlock allows himself a tiny smirk. The wife doesn’t even know John’s shoe size. But John gamely keeps on trudging along the path. 

Sherlock realizes that he’s nitpicking—that he’s analyzing his friend with his age-old tactics to rearrange his thoughts into some semblance of normalcy. Overall, John looks well. That knowledge does nothing to ease his state of mind; it is still overwhelmed by snatches of memory and accusatory words color the landscape red and orange and neon green (so awfully gaudy) and impossible to be ignored. 

As John ambles ever closer, Sherlock finds himself faced with a foreign reality. His mind is blissfully blank—an acute disruption of neural networks. John’s gait slows when he sees Sherlock. His mouth is slightly open and he frowns, squinting. He takes a few more steps closer (they are four feet away now). He stops. His gaze flits from Sherlock’s face to his shoulder to the long coat to his feet. His soldier stance is defensive and rigid. Sherlock stands up too quickly, wincing a little (his foot has fallen asleep). 

John drinks in the sight of him for fourteen seconds. He opens his mouth again to say something. A parting of lips. But he just expels air. Sherlock feels like he should be the one to say something. But he just expels air, too. He breathes like he’s being led to the guillotine, like he’s on a chase and he just can’t get enough oxygen (makes no sense. There is no danger. John is right here). 

John’s eyes are hooded and he sighs shakily. All of the fight seems to go out of him. His lips pull into that familiar sideways smile. But his eyes are guarded and his brow is furrowed. The ducks in the pond make splashing noises in the background and young wives chastise their unruly children. It’s all white noise to Sherlock. 

John shakes his head resolutely (just once), and then he breaks eye contact. He continues on the dirt-beaten path. Sherlock watches him go. He’s fluttering and flailing and tripping over syllables. 

“John,” he croaks. 60 decibels with inflection, with remorse. What used to be a command, a call to arms, is now a plea. John starts to limps slightly, but doesn’t slow down his pace. Sherlock watches him go. He can’t induce anything about the other man now. His mind feels too wide, too empty. 

He woodenly makes his way over to the railing, leaning against it heavily. He fumbles with the packaging of his cigarette box, tearing at it in uneven swipes. He lights up, cradling the cigarette from the slight breeze. It tastes muted. The nicotine won’t relax him; it careens around in his lungs like a ball in a pinball machine. He feels like he may vomit, feels the sour sensation in the back of his throat. He swallows too much saliva. 

John Watson always surprises him. His actions and his motivations are so foreign. Sherlock knows that he’s made a miscalculation somewhere. It takes him a little while, standing there by the lake, but he thinks that he might understand John. Right now, he might. The uncertainty digs its teeth into the edges of his mind. 

More than anything, Sherlock hates losing. It itches in his veins, makes him feel a fool.  
That’s all it is. 

It’s a syndrome, he’s sure. It makes perfect sense. John is his Rubik’s Cube. But now all the sides of the cube are stuck together, rigid and immovable. He could try to play, still. He could try, but he would have to break the cube into pieces, and he’s not sure he has the right to do that. Not when John’s so carefully found and polished and eased all of the blocks into their proper conformation. All color coordinated—wife, house, job—and unmarred. No nicks from knife fights gone wrong, no dark marks from bruises freshly delivered, no roughness around the edges courtesy of Sherlock’s caustic attitude towards the feeble minded and the criminally boring. 

Activation of the anterior cingulate cortex.  
That’s all it is.

He tosses his half-finished cigarette into the pond with a flick of the wrist, lips drawn tight. It is simple, really. Not even a low level deduction Anderson would miss. John is his Rubik’s Cube, but it’s been too long. And now Sherlock is certain that he won’t ever solve the puzzle. 

That’s all it is.


End file.
